Sensory and Gastrointestinal Impact of Taste Receptor Variants on Human Metabolism and Nutrition

Purpose

We investigate the impact of taste receptors (sweet, bitter and umami) on human metabolism.
There ist growing evidence, that components of the taste signalling system, including the
taste receptor proteins , have important functions in the regulation of metabolic parameters
in non-gustatory tissues.

Details

We apply different sweet, bitter and umami taste compounds in a single dose in the human
intervention. We use substances as for instance glucose, sucrose,saccharin and lactisol in
the sweet part, and substances from cabbage, beer or red endive in the bitter part. For
umami we take glutamate.
Blood samples are collected at baseline and 6 times thereafter up to 3hours, to analyse the
incretins GLP-1(glucagon-like peptide 1) and GIP(gastrointestinal polypeptide) and other
peptide hormones as insulin and PYY(peptide tyrosin trosin) in human beings.
Gastrointestinal mucosa is taken by gastroscopy from the lower duodenum from study subjects
for analysis for the presence or absence of functional taste receptors in gastrointestinal
tissues.